Noob questions

Well, not QUITE a noob, but noob enough. I've been playing this series of games on and off and extremely casually since Civ 1. After missing out on IV and skipping straight to V, I decided to get IV and have been playing it the past few days.

Here are my two big questions:

1. Should works/scouts be automated, or should I be micromanaging all of them?

2. I am currently playing on the lowest difficulty, and of course the game is really easy. But that said, I find that when I have a spread out civ later in the game, i'm just staring at the screen and not really knowing what is going on. I can flip through the advisors and get my head around some things, but I am having a hard time seeing the "big picture." Is that just inexperience?

Civ V has a lot less going on under the hood, but it also seems easier to manage. The reason I went back to Civ IV is because I wanted to play with computer opponents where diplomacy is a real system with checks and balances, and not do or die the way it is in Civ V.

 

I'd say so. Civ IV BtS has an awful lot of content and complexity. The best way to go is probably to just keep playing a while and then begin to focus on different concepts and aspects of the game one by one, exploring the options and maybe browsing the guides available here. For example, you can safely ignore Great People at first and then learn about them later when you want to beat a higher difficulty level.

To truly understand all the concepts and mechanics requires a lot of commitment and effort (and probably some intelligence, too). My brother has been a regular but casual Civ IV player for years, and I recently found out that he doesn't even know about some of the core concepts of the game which I find to be absolutely essential. So I guess you can delve deep or just stay at the surface, by picking your level of commitment, and difficulty level (he has yet to win on Noble).

 

Welcome to CFC!

hmmm... the issue with seeing the 'big picture' is probably inexperience, although I did find it very different to Civ III.

In the long term, try to read the strategy guides on this site and just keep asking questions as they occur to you: I've found with Civ that the only way to learn is to play and then ask for help if you get stuck

 

1: Micromanage them, but first, read these articles to get a feel; you wouldn't want to put a watermill on a tile where a farm may be most suited

2: Yup, inexperience it most likely is; first few times I played Civ4, I usually ended up ragequitting due to 'not knowing what to do next' Anyway, if you need advice or if you're stuck in a game, feel free to post in the Strategy and Tips forum for advice

Oh, btw. welcome to CFC

 

When I first started playing CIV, I was confused too. After discovering these forums, I would read about some aspect in the threads and War Academy article. Then, I would start a game and just play enough of it to try out the thing that I had been reading about. I would neglect any other aspect of the game, as long as it would not cause the game to end before I had gotten a chance to try out the new (to me) feature. I would do this for as many games as needed (usually just one) until I understood how the feature worked. Then I would start the process over again with some other feature. Once I felt that I had the various features at a basic understanding, I went back to playing games. At that point I had the big picture but many subtleties remained to be picked up over time, both while playing and in threads on these forums. The last part continues…..


And welcome to CFC!

 

Scouts-First few turns I control them-just to know how the land around me is. Later I automate all of them.
Workers-Most of the game[early,middle] I control them myself. But after I finish improving all my needed tiles, I put the 'Build Trade Network' automation on. This way they only build roads and connect resources, and can't mess up your well laid improvements.
Even if you do put the build improvements automation on, be sure to go to the options menu and turn on 'Automated workers do not chop forests' and 'Automated workers do not destroy existing improvements'.

 

If i'm not mistaken, "trade networks" don't exist in Civ V. Only roads to build trade routes. I've noticed that I only gain the benefit of resources under two conditions:

1. They are in my borders, and

2. I have a road to/from them

Is my assertion accurate?

And thanks for all the quick replies and warm welcomes!

 

If it is a typo and you mean IV, in my last post I was referring to the worker option-build trade network automated. It is the second-last icon.
Trade routes are different from ordinary roads.

To gain access to a resource, you must
1.Have it within your cultural borders.
2.Have the needed improvement on it. On BtS, you can build forts too.
3.Build a road, only if it isn't adjacent to a river. Otherwise, you don't need a road if it is next to a river.

In my previous post, I was talking about the worker option-build trade network automated. It is the second-last icon.
If you set your workers to this type of automation, they will both build roads and they will build forts on resources.

I forgot---
Welcome to the Forums!!!

 

I did mean Civ V; I was comparing the two. As in, in Civ V you do not need roads to resources in your borders, and in Civ IV you do.

 

In IV, rivers connect resources.

 

Good to know, so basically rivers, and road where rivers don't exist. I probably wouldn't have a lot of these questions if I didn't buy the game on Steam. There is no way i'm printing a manual that big.

Thanks again everyone for your help!

 

Roading by river stuff can still be useful for moving defensive units... don't give that up. I generally road most stuff eventually anyways, since it can save a worker turn to rebuild it if an enemy spy burns it or a random event takes it away I still say its a generally bad idea to automate workers in any way. It doesn't take a genius to move them and use them manually with a little coaching and is generally way more productive. Auto-workers LOVE to run out into the path of barbs and invading units too, btw

 

Yeah, but telling them to build roads and connect resources so that they can't mess up anything is fine, IMO.

 

Personally, I never automate anything except scouts

 

But you can do it sooooo much better with some practice. Why have workers running around all willy-nilly wasting worker turns when you can do it more efficiently and use the same worker (without chasing the little bugger down and un-automating him) to complete other, more important tasks?

 

After you have finished improving your land, that is when they should be automated to build roads. At that time you anyways have nothing else to improve.

 

Another reason is that human players tend to get sidetracked when they've got a war or something huge going on (space race, culture victory eminent, etc.). If you're distracted, you might not notice that you can build plantations (or RR or whatever) when they become available.

Auto-network is pretty good once you've finished CS irrigation chains or so, imho.

 

Regarding #2, since you're on the lowest difficulty level, you can pretty much stumble through the game and win any victory of your choice. That said, go through the game and play it your way, and eventually you'll find out what one thing will do to another, etc. Strategy articles are fantastic for learning as a new player, I highly recommend them. You can't go wrong with hearing what others have to say.

 

If you want to make the game harder on yourself, automate your workers! I guarantee it'll increase the difficulty!

But seriously, the choices it makes are terrible. You must control workers manually early game, and ideally later on, though sometimes it can get too tedious late game.

Auto trade route is much better except when they start building forts everywhere, and are still inefficient. It's okay to have some on this duty, but you will need to manually control them to make sure good tiles get improved.

 

I find that fine actually, because if an unconnected resource is within the BFC of a city, they build the needed improvement, and not a fort.